Ties That Bind
by TheHildur92
Summary: Jack Twist Newsome is a cop in the New York of today when he runs across the victim of an attack called Ennis Del Mar. The two men form an immediate bond but events from the past threaten their newly established relationship. Jack/Ennis.


The call comes in close to midnight, when I am about to finish my incident reports and head home for the night to my family. A uniform cop by the name of Ben Coulson pokes his head through the open door of my office.

"Sir, I´m sorry to disturb you at this late hour, but we just received a call about an assault outside a gay club. Denise is on shift but she had to rush home due to a sick child. Could you handle it?"

I answer in the affirmative, grab my jacket and head out the door with Ben at my side. "What do we know so far?" I question Ben.

"Apparently, a man was coming out of the club when some passerby attacked him without provocation. The victim managed to punch the assailant, knocking him out cold. The attacker is being moved to hospital, but we need a detective down at the scene to oversee things."

"Why is there so much evil in this world, Ben?"

"I don't know, sir," the young man replies, shaking his head in disdain. "I´m always surprised at the depth of depravity we are capable of."

"I´m never surprised," I return before waving goodbye and heading out to my car parked across the street from the station. It takes me twenty minutes to reach the club and I park a block away.

When I reach the scene, there is an ambulance parked in front of the club. Uniformed police officers are holding back the expectant crowds. On the step situated in the back of the ambulance sits a young man with blond hair and the features of a Greek God. A surge of attraction such as I have never known before runs through me. I head towards the young man that is being questioned by one of the uniforms, a young woman trying to project an aura of assurance and command. She is no doubt taking on the role of boss until someone higher up comes along.

"I need a description of the incident if you want to press charges, sir. Can you please tell me what happened?" she urges in a voice filled with irritation that tells me they have been doing this song and dance for quite some time. "How can I help you if you refuse to work with me?"

When she sees me, her demeanor changes, and she becomes almost submissive. She begins to give me an account of the attack, but I wave her away and she disappears. My attention is on the victim.

"My name is Detective Jack Newsome." I meet the brown eyes of the victim and feel instant familiarity. Yet, I am certain I would have remembered meeting the man before. The man merely grunts. Without hesitation, I reach out to cup his chin with my fingers to assess the injuries inflicted on him. He has a bruised temple but seems otherwise unharmed. I expect him to move out of my grasp at any moment but he doesn´t. Instead, it is me that releases him, jumps into the ambulance to get an icepack and toss it to him. He holds it to his temple and watches me with those brown orbs at the same time, as if assessing me.

My voice breaks the silence. "Do you want to file charges at this time?"

The victim lowers his icepack and shakes his head. I nod in return, understanding his perspective. "I will drive you home, then."

I leave the victim in order to find the policewoman from earlier and she gives me the address where the man is staying. She gathered that he is not from this city and that his name is Ennis Del Mar. She could get nothing more from him.

I return to the ambulance and escort Ennis to my car. We say nothing during the short ride to the address given to me by the uniform and I gather that this Ennis character is not much of a talker. I prefer him to many of the young loudmouths on the force who never learned to keep their mouth shut.

I park in front of the building and kill the engine. "Do you have someone who can stay with you?"

Ennis nods. "I live with my brother at the moment." He then reaches out his hand and puts it on my forearm. I feel the warmth of his fingers through the fabric of my shirt. "Thanks, Jack."

My name sounds too damn sexy on his lips for me to insist he call me Detective Newsome.

The hand is gone and he is out of the car before I can stop him. I roll down the window and call him back, handing him a business card. "If you ever need anything, just call me?"

Ennis nods, stuffing the card into the pocket of his jeans and disappears inside the building.

For the next four days, I hear nothing from Ennis, and have begun to think I never will, when he calls me early on a Sunday morning. I allowed Lurleen to sleep longer and brought my son into the living room to watch television. When my phone rings, I go into the kitchen and answer the call there.

"Detective Newsome."

"This is Ennis. Can we meet?"

We agree to meet the same evening for a beer at a police bar where I am a regular. For the rest of the day, I cannot concentrate on anything except the evening before me. I turn the bacon into coals, forget my son and he breaks a favorite bowl given to Lurleen by her parents, and my wife cannot drag a comprehensive sentence from me to save her life. In the end, she decides to escape for visit with her parents for a week to give me time to get my shit together.

Having waved my family off on their journey, I head back into the apartment and tear my closet apart trying to find something appropriate to wear. First, I settle on a suit but then realization dawns it would make me look like a clown to turn up dressed like that in a casual bar. Next, I decide on torn jeans and a Rolling Stones shirt, but then realize that the shirt is torn in the back due to the fact Lurleen borrows it endlessly, and I look like a sad attempt at trying to regain lost youth turning up like that. In the end, I settle for a blue buttoned shirt that brings out the color of my eyes and a pair of jeans without holes in them.

I am at the bar about an hour before we are supposed to meet, and growl at anyone I know to scare them from sitting in the booth with me. I chose one of the booths at the back where we can sit and talk in private, as opposed to the busy area in front of the bar. At the stroke of seven, Ennis walks in wearing a white shirt and jeans with a brown leather jacket. I cannot help thinking about how good he looks as I wave him over and tell myself that this is police business, not a high school date.

I am surprised, however, when Ennis merely grunts me a greeting and then sits down to drink his beer in silence. Clearly the man was never going to win Speaker of the Year Award, but I expected a little something, you know?

I ask him how it has been going since the attack.

"I´m doing okay," he informs me. "I wake up with nightmares and don´t go out after dark anymore but otherwise I´m okay."

"Have you thought about speaking to a professional?" I question but I am immediately dismissed with a wave of the hand.

"I´m talking to you, aren´t I?" Ennis shrugs and finishes the beer before ordering two more.

Since speaking about himself is not one of the strengths of Ennis Del Mar, I find myself talking about myself for the next half an hour. How I was born into the influential Twist family here in New York, but never fit in with that lot. After high school, I cut contact with all of them which was easy to do when my parents died in a car accident shortly after my high school graduation. I put myself through the police academy using loans. I met Lurleen shortly after graduation when she was the victim of a robbery and I had to take her statement as a uniform. We began dating soon after and had been together ever since. I took her name of Newsome to get rid of the endless Twist jokes down at the station.

"What´s your story, Ennis Del Mar?"

"Nothing much. I´m from Wyoming myself, a small ranch in the mountains. I´ve been a farmer all my life. I came here to see my brother and his family. They moved here three years ago and wanted me to experience New York."

"Guess they didn´t reckon on prejudiced half-wits like the guy from yesterday. Can´t imagine that it´s easy to be a gay man from Wyoming."

At my words, Ennis shoots me a deadly glance. "I´m not gay, Jack. I was merely walking past the club when this guy got all up in my face."

I don´t try to press the matter further but speak about Wyoming instead. A glow comes into the eyes of Ennis when he describes the mountains around his ranch, the beauty of the creek running behind the house and the grass bowing in the wind before an almighty master.

We share an easy conversation for another hour before I realize how drunk we both are. I hail a cab but due to the level of my inebriation, I give my address without considering how Ennis will get home. When the taxi parks in front of my place, Ennis follows me as if nothing could be more ordinary, and soon enough he is sleeping soundly in my bed without shoes that I manage to pull off him before he falls asleep holding my hand. I spend the night holding his hand, sleeping in the chair beside my bed.


End file.
